November 14, 1907] 



NA TURE 



29 



of this liind, there is no doubt that the author has 

 produced a book of considerable merit, the value of 

 which would be considerably enhanced in future 

 editions if the attempt to deal with the wants of the 

 skilled workman were frankly abandoned. 



The text covers most of tlie elementary operations 

 of the fitting and machine shops, and the graduated 

 exercises are well thought out, and in a well-equipped 

 college workshop under the supervision of a skilled 

 instructor a beginner would no doubt make remark- 

 able progress in the use of tools, and be of real value 

 in a works at the end of the course of instruction. 



Sicam and other Engines. By J. Duncan. Pp. 



ix + 471. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907.) 



Price 55. 

 The development of municipal technical schools 

 during the last few years has given a great impetus 

 to the production of books written especially for 

 elementary students. Mr. Duncan's book, on steam 

 and other engines, is an admirable little work of 

 this class, which students in the early part of a 

 course on mechanical engineering will greatly appre- 

 ciate, for it is well and clearly written, and covers a 

 wide range of modern practice. 



There is nothing more attractive to young engineer- 

 ing students than the purely mechanical details of 

 engines, and the wealth of illustrations accompanying 

 the descriptive matter will no doubt prove of great 

 interest. 



While the illustrations are a prominent feature of 

 this book, the more important elementary principles 

 of heat-engine theory and applied mechanics are also 

 presented in a very skilful manner. Students working 

 through the course of instruction prescribed, espe- 

 cially if thev are able to carry out the experiments and 

 take part in the engine and boiler trials, as the author 

 recommends, will obtain quite a considerable know- 

 ledge of steam and other heat engines. 



There appear to be very few errors or mistakes of 

 any importance, but occasionally the author is not 

 an accurate guide, as, for instance, when dealing with 

 the flow of steam in an expanding nozzle he incident- 

 ally says that " In the case of a liquid the problem is 

 simple as the property of expansibility is absent," a 

 statement in direct contradiction to the actual facts, 

 as students of hydraulics are well aware. 



The Elements of Mechanics.' A Text-Book for 

 Colleges and Technical Schools. By W. S. Frank- 

 lin and B. Macnutt. Pp. xi + 283. (New York: 

 The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., 

 Ltd., 1907.) Price bs. 6d. net. 

 .\ BOOK on elementary mechanics, which commences 

 bv addressing the reader as my young friend, and 

 iiiimediately after, in a lengthy paragraph, draws a 

 comparison between the student and the axolotl, docs 

 not seem very promising as a scientific work. This 

 feeling is strengthened when a little further on, in 

 speaking of the laws of motion, one of the authors 

 writes : — 



" You, mv young friend, must have in some 

 measure mv own youthful view, which, to tell the 

 truth, I have never wholly lost, that there is some- 

 thing absurd in the idea of reducing the more com- 

 plicated phenomena of nature to any orderly system 

 of mechanical law. For to speak of motion is no 

 doubt to call to your mind first of all the phenomena 

 that are associated with the excessively complicated, 

 incessantly changing, turbulent and tumbling motion 

 of wind and water. These phenomena have always 

 had tlie most insistent appeal to us ; they have con- 

 fronted us everywhere and always, and life is an un- 

 ending contest with their fortuitous diversity, which 

 rises only too often to irresistible sweeps of destruction 



NO. 1985, VOL. yy] 



in fire and flood, and in calamitous crash of collision 

 and collapse where all things commingle in one dread 

 fluid confusion. " 



The book does not, happily, continue in this style 

 after the opening chapter, but commences a systematic 

 treatment of elementary mechanics on familiar lines, 

 which, however, does not present any new features 

 worthy of notice, except that inaccuracies and lack of 

 precision in the statement of scientific principles are 

 numerous. A new text-book on mechanics may be 

 justifiable, if the authors can present the subject in 

 a better way than has been presented before, or in a 

 form more adapted to the wants of its readers, but a 

 comparison of this work with any good elementary 

 treatise on the subject cannot fail to show its inferior 

 character. E. G. C. 



Die Losiing des Problems der Urzeugung {Archigonia, 



Generalio spontanea). By Martin Kuckuck. Pp. 



vii + 83 ; with 34 figs, and one table. (Leipzig : Barth, 



1907.) Price 3 marks. 

 Dr. Kuckuck made a mixture of gelatine, peptone, 

 asparagin, glycerine, and sea-water, boiled it for an 

 hour, put it in a sterilised vessel, and added a little 

 chloride of barium, which brought about ionisation. 

 The outcome was the formation of minute bodies like 

 protozoa, which show " nutrition, growth, reproduc- 

 tion (segmentation), inheritance, movement (rotation), 

 and form cell-groups (ccenobia of Haeckel), which re- 

 semble animal morute. " Barium chloride produces 

 similar morulae in fresh white of egg and in yolk of 

 egg. Drops of natrium nucleinecum (Merck), allowed 

 to fall on the surface of the gelatine-peptone-aspara- 

 gin-glycerine-sea-salt mixture, produce rotating cor- 

 puscles, which form loose colonies. The author gives 

 verv interesting and striking figures, some drawn, 

 some from photographs, of his artificial cells and cell- 

 colonies. The figures drawn from the artificial 

 morulse would pass muster in a text-book of embry- 

 ology; the cell-outlines are sharply defined, and each 

 cell has a beautiful nucleus. It seems to us that these 

 and similar experiments would be more interesting, if 

 less were proved. 



On this experimental basis. Dr. Kuckuck rears a 

 theoretical superstructure. Mixtures of inorganic and 

 organic substances pass by ionisation into protoplasm. 

 Salts of barium, radium, and nuclein effect this ion- 

 isation. The process of organisation is a process of 

 ionisation. It is so now, and it was so in the begin- 

 ning. The first organisms arose in the sea and were 

 non-nucleated Monera. The nucleated cell arose by 

 the symbiosis of two aniso-clectrical non-nucleated 

 cytodes, as is proved bv the fertilisation-process, for 

 is not ontogeny a recapitulation of phylogeny ? " Every- 

 thing living has sex (negative and positive ions), and 

 everything is living because it has sex (negative and 

 positive ions) : ohne Geschlecht kein Leben." A sort 

 of genealogical tree is given showing the origin of 

 organisms from inorganic substances, so that the 

 Stammbaum is now quite complete, even as to its 

 roots. J- A. T. 



The Flora of Columbia, Missouri, a)id Mcinity. By 



F. P. Daniels. The University of Missouri Studies. 



Science Series, vol. i.. No. 2. Pp. x-)-3i9. (The 



University of Missouri, 1907.) 

 .'\s a study of a local flora, this memoir, furnishing 

 a list of the plants and an ecological survey, forms a 

 suitable volume for the science series of the Missouri 

 University publications. 



The flora is characterised by a predominance of 

 genera belonging to the orders Composite, Gramineae, 

 and Leguminosffi. The sedges are numerous, since 

 the species of Carex exceed fifty. Desmodium, Mes- 



